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DISCOURSE 



OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH OF THE 



HON. JOSEPH STORY, LL. D., 



DELIVERED IN 



THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST PARISH IN CAMBRIDGE, 



ON SUNDAY; SEPT. 14, 1845. 



By WILLIAM NEWELL, 

PASTOR OF THE FIRST CHURCH IN CAMBRIDGE. 



CAMBRIDGE: 
METCALF AND COMPANY, 

PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 

1845. 



DISCOURSE 



OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH OF THE 



HON. JOSEPH STORY, LL. D., 



DELIVERED IN 



THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST PARISH IN CAMBRIDGE, 



ON SUNDAY, SEPT. 14, 1845. 



By WILLIAM NEWELL, 

PASTOR OF THE FIRST CHURCH IN CAMBRIDGE. 




CAMBRIDGE: 
METCALF AND COMPANY, 

PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSIIV. 

1845. 



At a meeting of members of the First Parish in Cambridge, held after 
divine service, on Sunday, Sept. 14th, the following votes were passed : — 

Voted, That this society hold in the most respectful and affectionate re- 
membrance the character of the late Judge Story, whose death has been 
noticed in the public services this day. 

Voted, That John G. Palfrey, Abel Whitney, Andrews Norton, Charles R. 
Metcalf, William Read, and Nathan Rice, be a committee to wait upon the 
pastor, to thank him for his appropriate and impressive discourse pronounced 
this morning, and respectfully to request a copy for the press. 

A true copy. — Attest, 

James Munroe, Jr., Sec'y. 



Cambridge, Sept. 15th, 1845. 
Reverend and dear Sir, 

At a meeting of the worshippers in the First Church in Cambridge, after 
divine service yesterday, votes were unanimously passed, a copy of which we 
have the honor herewith to place in your hands. 

Agreeably to our commission, we respectfully request a copy of your ser- 
mon, delivered yesterday morning, for publication. 
We are, dear Sir, with great esteem. 

Your parishioners and friends, 

John G. Palfrey, 
Abel Whitney, 
Andrews NoRTOff, 
Charles R. Metcalf, 
William Read, 

Nathan Rice. 
To the Rev. William Newell. 



Cambridge, Sept. IGth, 1845. 
To Messrs. J. G. Palfrey, A. Whitney, A. Norton, > 
C. R. Metcalf, W. Read, and N. Rice. ^ 

Gentlemen: — I place at your disposal the discourse of which you have 
asked a copy. It was necessarily prepared in haste, and is but an imperfect 
expression of the respect and admiration in which we hold the memory of 
our lamented townsman and friend. But as a token of our reverence and 
affection, coming from the heart, it may have its value. It may serve as one 
memorial of the sentiments with which he was regarded among the people of 
his own village, as well as by the community at large. 

Among the many rich flowers which will be strewn upon his grave by 
honored hands, I esteem it a privilege to join with my parishioners in this 
humbler offering of love. 

With much esteem, 

Your friend and pastor, 

William Newell. 



" He who has been enabled, by the force of his talents and the example of 
his virtues, to identify his own character with the solid interests and happi- 
ness of his country ; he who has lived long enough to stamp the impressions 
of his own mind upon the age, and has left on record lessons of wisdom for 
the study and improvement of all posterity ; he, I say, has attained all that a 
truly good man aims at, and all that a truly great man should aspire to. He 
has erected a monument to his memory in tlie hearts of men." 

Story's Discourse upon Chief-Justice Marshall. 



SERMON. 



"Behold the Lord, the Lord of Hosts, doth take away from Jeru- 
salem AND FROM JcDAH THE STAY AND THE STAFF, THE JUDGE, 

THE PRUDENT, AND THE HONORABLE MAN, THE COUNSELLOR, 

AND THE ELOQUENT ORATOR." — Isaiah iii. 1-3. 
*' The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away ; blessed be the 
NAME OF THE LoRD." — Job i. 2L 



Every general law must be a law of wisdom and 
benevolence. Every universal condition attached to 
our being must result sooner or later in good. Every 
event which God has made necessary and inevitable 
carries in the very fact of its being so an all-sufficient 
argument, to a religious mind, that it has uses and 
blessings, seen or unseen, enjoyed in this world or to 
bp enjoyed in some future stage of existence, which 
amply compensate for its present and seeming evils. 
He who ordained it for all loves and pities his children, 
is laboring for the welfare of the universe, has ex- 
pressed his benignant purposes in his creation, has re- 
vealed his Fatherhood in the gospel and in the charac- 
ter of Jesus Christ. And under his administration, 
" Whatever is, is right " ; " Whatever has happened 
is best." The poet's maxim and the Persian proverb 
are but echoes of the great Christian truth, " All things 



work together for good" ; are implied in the great 
Christian prayer, — the prayer of our Lord himself, — 
the prayer which in so few words comprehends so 
much, — the simple but sublime prayer of an humble 
and filial faith, — " Father, thy will be done." That 
Will, not an arbitrary but an intelligent Will, has made 
life a short, uncertain, checkered pilgrimage. That 
supreme but all-righteous, all-benevolent Will has ap- 
pointed the mysterious change which w^e call Death for 
the accomplishment of its wise and good purposes. 
Life and death are both from the same hand, are both 
under the same overruling Power. He who called me 
into being in his infinite mercy, in his infinite mercy 
has placed the tomb across my path. The earth is 
but the cradle of man ; and at its Father's call the soul 
must leave its cradle for its nobler sphere, though at 
the cost of suffering and tears. The corruptible must 
put on incorruption, — the mortal must put on immor- 
tality, — the mounting spirit must ascend to a higher 
life, — but only over the ruins of its fleshly tabernacle, 
which sometimes slowly crumbles and falls, sometimes 
is suddenly laid low, that its prisoner may be set free. 

In our Christian faith we readily assent to the con- 
solation that is offered us on the departure of the great 
and good, of the lovely and beloved, of the innocent 
child and the virtuous old man, — that it is best for 
them that they should go ; that God has other work 
and brighter skies for them above ; that they have 
exchanged a world of suffering, of sorrow, of clouded 
enjoyment, of imperfect vision, of unsatisfied desires 
and hopes, for one in which all will be light, and love, 
and peace. We do not doubt that God has in store 



for them blessings infinitely outweighing the richest 
and most envied of earth. When the first bitterness 
of grief is past, in the calm of peaceful meditation, we 
rejoice for them that they are gone to the Father. As 
far as we in our present ignorance and weakness of 
faith can bring nigh to our minds the delights and the 
duties of the second life, we are comforted by the 
thought of their happiness. In some cases that thought 
is the first and most prominent in our minds. When 
our friends have ceased to be useful in the world, 
when their faculties have been hopelessly shattered by 
the violence of disease or sapped by the slow decays 
of age, when repeated misfortunes and bereavements 
have thrown a thick gloom around their path, and life 
has lost its sweetness, or has become a sad and weari- 
some burden, — we may even welcome the last enemy 
and hail him as a deliverer and friend, — to be de- 
voutly wished and prayed for. 

But there are instances perpetually occurring in which 
death presents itself under a very different aspect. It 
comes not only to the aged, the infirm, the wretched, 
the solitary survivor, the superannuated and idiotized 
pauper, the useless wreck of intelligence and power, the 
obscure and unknown outcast, but to the young and the 
hopeful, to the prosperous and the happy, to those who 
are still the blessings and the ornaments of the circle 
in which they move, to those whose continued stay 
seems necessary to the happiness and welfare, if not 
to the support, of a loving household, to the pillars of 
the church and the state, to the needed champions of 
truth, humanity, and freedom, to the lights of a nation 
and of mankind. "Behold the Lord, the Lord of 



8 

Hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah 
the staff and the stay, the judge, and the sage, the 
honorable man, the counsellor, and the eloquent ora- 
tor." There is the mystery and the sadness of death. 
It removes those whom the world cannot afford to lose. 
It cuts short the career of many a wise and gifted man, 
even while the full radiance of his genius and virtue is 
shining upon society. It scatters the fond hopes, it 
rends the cherished affections, which are still growing 
fresh and strong around their honored object. It 
comes with heavy shock into the united family, and 
passes on through bleeding hearts. The heavy loss of 
the survivors makes us forget the unspeakable gain of 
the departed. While we mourn for ourselves, for our 
commonwealth and our country, we lose sight of the 
glory and the happiness of the ascended Christian. 
His departure seems to us all untimely and grievous ; 
— it is one of the darker dispensations of Providence, 
in its actual or apprehended effects upon the circle and 
the community which suffer, — one of the darker dis- 
pensations of Providence, in which evil seems for the 
time to be permitted to triumph ; — and our thoughts 
dwell more on the visible calamity which has fallen 
upon the living, than on the unseen bliss of the friend 
and benefactor whom they so deeply mourn and miss. 
Such an event has just occurred in the midst of this 
community. God has removed one of the great lights 
and ornaments of our country. He has taken from 
Jerusalem and from Judah, from the University and the 
Union, the stay and the staff, the judge, and the sage, 
the upright and the honorable man, the wise counsellor, 
and the eloquent orator. He has called him from us 



9 

in the undiminished vigor of his intellect, and in the 
mid noon of his fame and his usefulness, while we 
were looking forward with pride and hope to many 
years of active and beneficent labor in his high voca- 
tion, and to new contributions to legal science from his 
wonderfully prolific pen, — the rich, ripe fruits of a green 
old age, in full bearing to the last. His earthly mission 
has been terminated just as he was about to concen- 
trate his powers upon a field of occupation so happily 
adapted to his period of life and his somewhat en- 
feebled constitution, as well as to his character and 
talents, that, in our blindness, and in spite of the warn- 
ings we had already received, we felt as if there were 
almost a pledge given us by Providence that his life 
would be long spared for the work which he seemed 
to have been specially chosen and trained to perform 
with such unrivalled ability and success. Feeling that 
his health and strength were now inadequate to sustain 
the arduous and increasing labors of his public office 
in addition to his cares and responsibilities in the Uni- 
versity, and to the preparation of the important profes- 
sional works which alone would have been enough for 
the lifetime of a common man, but which he had laid 
out for himself as the pleasant employment of his next 
ten years, he was on the point of resigning his seat on 
the bench of the Supreme Court and of devoting him- 
self for the remainder of his days — so long as God 
should give him ability to discharge the duties of his 
station — to the charge of the Law School in this 
place, and to the completion of the legal investigations 
upon which he was engaged. But it was otherwise 
ordered. He died in the robes of his judicial office. 
2 



10 

His colleagues in that high station, who looked up to 
him as their head in fact if not in name, are called to 
mourn for a different separation from that which they 
had already anticipated. They have lost the stay and 
the staff on which they as well as the community 
leaned. Almost at the moment when he was about 
to pen his letter of resignation, he was seized with 
the illness which, after a few days of alternate hope 
and fear agitating all hearts from the highest to the 
lowest (for he was known and loved by all), proved to 
be the last summons of God. A disease, which, it 
appears, had been preying for years on the vital organs 
of the system, and which no human skill could arrest, 
at length terminated a life which had long been sus- 
pended by a thread, and which, with this secret enemy 
within, could have been preserved as long as it was 
only by a favoring Providence, as well as by strict tem- 
perance and care. 

The silver cord is loosed. The golden lamp is 
broken. The pure light is quenched. The blessing 
is withdrawn. The marble coldness of death rests 
upon that honored brow. The funeral group gathers 
around that revered form. The last lingering look is 
fixed upon those loved features. The solemn prayer 
is uttered. The tearful eye speaks the farewell of 
many an overflowing heart. And, as the body is borne 
tenderly to its long home, and the mourners in sad 
silence or with subdued voices follow the relics of the 
dead to their last resting-place in the quiet shades of 
his own consecrated Mount Auburn, to sleep by the 
side of his children and in the beautiful spot which he 
had himself chosen and adorned, even a stranger's eye 



11 

may perceive that it is no common funeral which is 
passing through our streets, — it is no common loss 
which has fallen upon our people. 

I am sure, my friends, that I should do violence to 
your feelings not less than to my own, if I failed to ex- 
press our deep sense of the calamity which has fallen 
both upon our village and upon our country, and to lay 
upon the grave of our lamented townsman and friend, 
some tribute, however humble and inadequate, as I 
know it must be, to his genius and worth. 

He was one of the great men of our country. Very 
early in life he distinguished himself in the profession 
which he had chosen, and was a prominent leader in 
this Commonwealth of the political party whose princi^ 
pies he had espoused with all the ardor of youth and 
the warmth and eagerness of his temperament. At 
the age of thirty-two, a period of life at which most 
of his brethren are but just making their way into the 
practice of the law, he was appointed by President 
Madison one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of 
the United States. The result proved the choice to 
have been most wisely and fortunately made. Young 
as he was, he was found equal to his office. What 
higher praise can be given him ? The conspicuous- 
ness and difficulty of his station would have only made 
any incompetency more glaring had his claims rested 
on the flashy brilliancy of superficial acquirement and 
not on the solid foundation of learning and genius. If 
there were any, not knowing the man, who, under the 
circumstances of his appointment, doubted and feared, 
their doubts and fears were ere long changed into ad- 
miration, confidence, and respect. From the moment 



12 

that he was chosen to his exalted office, he gave him- 
self up to its duties with all his characteristic devotion 
and zeal. He forsook all interfering interests, and 
made it his first fixed aim to be an able, faithful, and 
righteous interpreter and minister of the Constitution 
and laws of his country. How he performed the great 
and responsible duties which he had undertaken, with 
what consummate ability, with what unswerving up- 
rightness, with what winning grace, with what univer- 
sal acceptance, — with what laborious diligence of in- 
vestigation, with what calm wisdom of judgment, with 
what wide-reaching comprehension of his subjects, 
with what overflowing fulness of learning, with what 
matchless resources of legal erudition, available at a 
moment's warning, with what clearness of reasoning 
and copiousness of illustration, — and, more than this, 
with what integrity, with what pure love of truth and of 
justice, with what candor and patience, with what strict 
regard to the rights of all, with what courteous con- 
sideration of the feelings of all, with what gentle inde- 
pendence and firmness, with what mild dignity of 
bearing, — in a word, with what a rare union of the 
gifts, accomplishments, and virtues, which best befit 
and adorn the station which he held, — is well known 
to his countrymen ; and will be yet better known and 
felt now that death has set his seal upon his labors, 
and summons the world to examine his finished ca- 
reer. 

It was not the least among the privileges and honors 
of the office to which he was so early called, that it 
brought him into intimate connection with one whose 
name stands by the side of Washington's in the annals 



13 

of our nation. He became the admiring friend and 
the trusted and worthy colleague of Chief-Justice 
Marshall. In the society of that great man, in the 
light of his wisdom and experience, in the atmosphere 
of his pure, patriotic, and noble spirit, he began his 
judicial hfe, and for a quarter of a century enjoyed the 
blessing of his companionship and cooperation. Every 
year added to his reputation and to his influence, till he 
stood with acknowledged authority among the most 
accomplished jurists of the age, and, in our own coun- 
try at least, first among the foremost. 

His mind was very peculiarly and happily endowed. 
It was richly and variously gifted both by nature and 
by study. It might be compared to the lithe proboscis 
of the elephant in its union of delicacy, dexterity, and 
strength. He combined surprising quickness of appre- 
hension with caution and solidity of judgment; the sa- 
gacity of a practical understanding with the depth of a 
profound reasoner in the subjects of his profession ; an 
eagle-eyed insight into the dim and remote truth with 
indomitable patience and intense industry in bringing 
it to light and clearing away the rubbish which had 
gathered over it ; the comprehensiveness of a wide- 
searching intellect, seizing upon the general principles 
of his noble science and mastering its most complicated 
problems, with the suppleness and tact and microscopic 
vision of a mind that inspects and grasps the minutest 
facts, and elaborates the minutest details, — reminding 
MS of the mighty power, which, in its varied applications, 
with equal ease, moves a mountain mass or finishes the 
point of a pin. He was thus most admirably fitted for 
the highest success in his office. He was alike ready 



14 

and qualified for business and for study ; for dealing 
with men and affairs, and for discovering truth and 
applying it. 

Those who can best appreciate his labors in his 
official station and in his printed works have borne 
ample testimony to their greatness and value. We 
may well congratulate our country that such men as he 
and his coadjutor, Marshall, have laid the foundations of 
our jurisprudence, deep and strong, for coming genera- 
tions. And it is not America only which recognizes the 
debt of gratitude which is due to him for his services and 
his writings. His name is widely and honorably known 
beyond the Atlantic. " The loss," it was truly said on 
the day of his funeral by one of our most eminent 
statesmen and advocates, "the loss is not confined to 
this country nor to this continent. He had a wider 
range of reputation. In the High Court of Parliament, 
in every court in Westminster Hall, in every distin- 
guished judicature in Europe, in the courts of Paris, of 
Berlin, of Stockholm, and of St. Petersburg, in the 
Universities of Germany, Italy, and Spain, his authority 
was received, and when they hear of his death they 
will agree that a great luminary has fallen. He has, in 
some measure, repaid the debt which America owes to 
England ; and the mother can receive from the daugh- 
ter without humiliation and without envy the reversed 
hereditary transmission from the child to the parent. 
By the comprehensiveness of his mind and by his vast 
and varied attainments he was most fitted to compare 
the codes of different nations and to comprehend the 
results of such research." It belongs, however, to 
others, better quahfied than myself, to speak of his 



1^ 

legal attainments and his judicial merits as they de- 
serve to be spoken of. The common voice of his 
brethren and of the people has already pronounced 
this general eulogy upon his public character and his 
official labors ; — and those who understand them best 
praise them most. 

But there are other relations in which we are at no 
loss, any of us, to comprehend and to feel his excel- 
lence ; — other points of view, — and those, too, of 
more importance in the sight of God, — in which we 
love to remember him. He was not merely a great 
man in the common and lower sense of the word, — 
not only illustrious for his intellect and learning, — not 
only admired for his ready gifts and varied acquire- 
ments, — not only reverenced for the high station which 
he occupied, — not only rewarded with a wide-spread 
fame for the lucid and instructive works which issued 
from his pen ; — he was much more than all this. He 
was great and illustrious, admired and reverenced, for 
his private virtues, for his Christian graces, for the 
noble and winning qualities of his kind and generous 
heart. He was another instance of the double power 
which is added to superior talent by its union with sin- 
cere goodness. His life was without stain. No breath 
of suspicion ever rested on the spotless ermine of his 
character. He was the truly upright and honorable 
7nan, as well as the just and independent judge, with- 
out fear and without reproach. He carried into all his 
dealings, — into all his varied duties, — the same purity 
and elevation of purpose, the same heartiness of inter- 
est, the same mildness and consideration for others, 
which distinguished him on the bench of justice. In 



16 

his habits of life he was remarkable for his simplicity, 
regularity, unwearied diligence, and methodical ar- 
rangement of time. He could never have accom- 
plished what he did, except by the most persevering 
industry, united with the peculiar activity and hghtning 
quickness of thought, and ever-ready command of his 
faculties, which were among his peculiar gifts, derived 
from a happy nature, improved by education, circum- 
stances, and self-discipline, and kept bright to the last 
by unceasing exercise, amidst the multitude of his 
pressing duties. And what was remarkable in him 
was, that while he thus gave himself with his whole 
heart to his legal pursuits, while he was one of the 
most laborious of students, and the most industrious of 
writers, he was always ready to enter into the passing 
interests of the day, — he could unbend his mind at 
once from its graver occupations and its profound in- 
quiries, and descend with ease and grace into the 
pleasantry of lighter conversation, — he could enjoy 
with keen relish, not only the society of kindred and 
equal spirits, but the company of younger and differ- 
ently trained minds, — he could apply himself to their 
mental condition, sympathize with them in their feel- 
ings, and become for the time their companion and 
friend. He rose from his books, not dulled and stif- 
fened by his labors of thought, but ever with pliant and 
light spirit, prepared for friendly intercourse, for do- 
mestic hilarity, for interchange of ideas and feelings, or 
for the practical, every-day business of life. And this 
was to be ascribed partly to a natural versatility of tal- 
ent, and a natural elasticity of intellect, and partly to 
the genial cheerfulness of his disposition, and the out- 



17 

flowing kindliness ol his temper, that was ready to see 
good in every thing and to do good to every man. 
And who that knew him will ever foro;et his affable and 
cordial manners, his warm greeting, his ready smile, 
his hospitable welcome ? In him the consciousness of 
superiority never betrayed itself in a haughty, cold, 
repulsive demeanour. Wherever he went, he carried 
with him an atmosphere of sunshine. His pleasant 
wit, his inexhaustible vivacity, the flow of his conver- 
sation, ranging with equal ease from the lightest to the 
gravest subjects of thought, his stores of anecdote, his 
varied and instructive discourse, charmed and glad- 
dened all whom choice or chance brought into his 
company. In the street and by the fireside, in the 
public conveyance and in the private meeting, among 
strangers and friends, with all classes and conditions of 
men, with the old and the young alike, with the learned 
and the ignorant, his free, social, and communicative 
qualities made him the life and the light of the circle. 
And these were connected with, were indeed a part 
of, the loving and disinterested spirit which formed one 
of the prominent traits of his character, and which 
showed itself not only in the ways which have been 
mentioned, but in all the multiplied forms under which 
the various calls of human life and human society could 
bring it forth. He was always among the foremost and 
the full-handed — you can bear witness to it — in 
every good work ; — always standing ready with purse 
and influence, with wise counsel and generous sympa- 
thy, to throw into the stock of human happiness ; 
holding his ten talents in his open palm, and writing in 
his life a golden commentary on the charge of the 

3 



18 

Apostle to the rich in this world's gifts, " that they be 
not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in 
the living God, who giveth us richly all things to en- 
joy ; that they do good, that they be rich in good 
works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate." 
No one who needed his help ever went to him in vain. 
No useful enterprise, no charitable undertaking, ever 
failed through his negligence or coldness. With all 
his engrossing cares he found time to serve his friends, 
his townsmen, his fellow-citizens, in a multitude of 
ways, besides that which Providence had made the 
chief mission of his life. And the more he did, the 
more he seemed able to do. Hard work and useful 
work was his pleasure. The more of it the better. 
It was a delight to him to impart aid and comfort and 
happiness to every individual who came within his 
sphere. And his kind and liberal heart poured itself 
out in secret streams of bounty, as well as in more 
public benefactions, freely and ungrudgingly. The 
same disposition which led him to communicate so 
readily of his stores of knowledge to all who ap- 
proached him led him to communicate not less readily, 
at every call of duty or charity, of his stores of wealth. 
He did not live for himself alone. "By this shall all 
men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love 
one to another," said the Saviour. Our departed 
friend, certainly, if any man, was entitled by this crite- 
rion to be called a disciple of Jesus. In this spirit of 
love he was indeed a Christian worthy of the name. 
And he was not only a Christian in spirit, but a Chris- 
tian in faith. He was a Christian in spirit, because he 
was a Christian in faith. His life bore the fruits of his 



19 

creed. His death was in accordance with it. He 
bowed humbly to the will of God. His last words 
were words of prayer. He was a believer on con- 
viction in the divine mission of Christ, in the facts of 
the gospel history, and in the truths of the Christian 
revelation. He was a sincerely religious man, with- 
out any parade of piety. He reverenced Christian 
institutions. He was a devout and constant worship- 
per at the sanctuary. As long as his health continued 
firm, he never failed to appear, morning and evening, in 
the house of God. He was deeply interested in re- 
ligious subjects, and in the religious movements of the 
day. He gave his voice and his influence, his authori- 
ty and his example, to the Gospel of Christ. It would 
be well for others to remember and profit by the les- 
sons which he gave them in this as in other points of 
human duty. 

In his theological opinions, he acknowledged no 
creed but the Scriptures, and no authority but that of 
the Great Master himself. He had rejected the so- 
called Orthodox doctrines, because they were at vari- 
ance, as he thought, with the teachings of reason and 
the true interpretation of the Bible. He was an 
avowed and earnest Unitarian,* and, on more than one 
occasion, bore his eloquent public testimony in behalf 
of that form of Christian faith which we deem it our 
privilege to have embraced as the truth of God and 
the teaching of the primitive Church. When it can 
number in its ranks such men as Newton and Locke 
among philosophers, and Milton among poets, apd 

* He was for several years the President of the American Unitarian 
Association, and a speaker in its public meetings. 



20 

Lardner and Channing among divines, and Parsons 
and Story among jurists, it may be fairly presumed 
that it is no weak or pernicious heresy ; that it rests on 
safe and strong grounds ; that it has God's smile upon 
it. We only ask the world to judge the tree by its 
fruits ; — at least, before they condemn it on hearsay, 
as a barren and poisonous thing, to remember a few of 
the names which shine among its branches, and whose 
fragrance yet fills the world. 

I have thus imperfectly, in the limited time which I 
have been able to give to the subject, sketched the char- 
acter and merits of our beloved and revered townsman, 
— the learned and upright magistrate, the illustrious 
jurist, the accomplished scholar, the indefatigable stu- 
dent, the eloquent instructer, the wise counsellor, the 
pure patriot, the public-spirited citizen, the kind neigh- 
bour and friend, the sympathizing and true-hearted 
companion, whose genial spirits and open affections 
ran warm to the last, untouched by the chill of age, 
the generous helper and benefactor, the affectionate 
husband and father, the pure and devout Christian. 
He has passed from us in the fulness of his virtues 
and honors, in the unabated freshness and strength of 
his fine powers. His loss is in many respects an irre- 
parable one. — What it is to his family, I need not say. 
I will not intrude upon the sacredness of domestic sor- 
sow. — It is a loss to the nation and the world. It is 
a heavy loss to this village and to our own religious 
society, with which he was partially connected, as an 
occasional fellow-worshipper,* and in whose prosper- 

* During the College vacations. And in this connection I may mention 
the fact, which, though trifling in itself, is so characteristic of the man, 



21 

ity he took a warm and active interest. It is a loss 
which cannot be estimated, or, as it now seems to us, 
repaired, to the whole University, over whose affairs he 
has so long presided, as a member of the Corporation ; 
and, above all, to that department of it with which he 
was specially connected, and which, under the auspices 
of his name and the lustre of his character, has at 
once risen in rank and in numbers above every other 
institution of the kind in this country. His pupils have 
already expressed in their affectionate tribute to his 
memory the veneration and love with which they re- 
garded him. He was " the minister of God to them 
for good " ; inspiring them with his own enthusiasm 
for the studies of their chosen profession, showing them 
by his own example the excellence and the rewards 
of industry, and distilling into their minds, not only by 
direct precept, but through the high moral tone of his 
conversation and his character, an interest in all truth 
and beauty, a reverence for goodness and for God. 
He led them through the temple of justice to the 
shrine of virtue and the altar of the Most High. 
They looked up to him as a father, counsellor, and 
friend. His kind and familiar manners drew them to 
him in a kind of filial confidence. The love which he 
manifested towards his pupils was amply returned in 
the love which they bore to him. And what was true 
of him in this relation was true of him in every other. 
He was " the general favorite, as the general friend." 

that he gave directions to the sexton of the church to use his pew free- 
ly during his absence, and to keep it open for all strangers and visiters 
who might wish for a seat. He was indeed " given to hospitality" in 
the church as well as at his pleasant home. 



22 

The anxiety which prevailed among his townsmen, of 
all classes, during the progress of his last illness was an 
expressive and aflfecting testimony to the value of his 
public services, and the winningness of his private life- 
It may be pleasant to them to know that he felt and 
appreciated it. He was peculiarly touched and grat- 
ified by the many expressions of interest which came 
from the workmen and mechanics of the village. He 
was not less loved than honored by all. For all had 
experienced or knew his kindness. They read it in 
his benignant countenance and his courteous manners. 
They saw it as he passed through the street. He had 
some word of pleasant greeting for every one whom 
he met. The poorest and humblest were treated by 
him with a truly republican, a truly Christian affability 
and kindness. This was not the least part of his 
greatness. 

No man among us was more universally beloved 
than he. No man on his dying bed could better apply 
to himself the words of the ancient saint : — " When the 
ear heard me, it blessed me ; and when the eye saw me, 
it gave witness to me. I put on righteousness and it 
clothed me ; and justice was my robe and diadem. I 
was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame. I was 
a father to the poor ; and the cause which I knew not 
I searched out. Jnd I brake the jaws of the wicked 

and plucked the spoil out of his teeth My glory 

imis fresh in me and my bow was reneived in my hand. 
Unto me men gave ear, and waited, and kept silence at 

my counsel." 

He is gone. The places that have known him will 
see him no more. But he lives in the hearts of men. 



23 



He lives in the works and words which he has left 
behind him. Still more he lives unto God. He has 
gone to the Father. That Father has kind and benef- 
icent purposes in his removal, though we may not see 
them now. He will not forsake his people. He will 
raise up others to guide and to bless them. He taketh 
away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the 
staff. But we must thank him that he gave the 
blessing and that we have enjoyed it so long. We 
must bow to his decree in trust and in hope. " The 
Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away ; blessed be 
the name of the Lord." 



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